"All the same the New Englanders are good for something. Ten years hence, you boys will be doing what your fathers are doing,--subduing the world, and making it to be more what God wants it to be. And you will not work at arms' length, as they did, nor with your own muscles." "We have Aladdin's lamp," said Mary, laughing. "And his ring," said Susie. "I always liked the ring one better than the lamp one, though he was not so strong." "He is prettier in the pictures," said George. "Yes," said the Colonel; "we have stronger Genii than Aladdin had, and better machinery than Prince Camaralzaman." "I heard some one say that Mr. Corliss had added twenty-seven per cent to the working power of the world by his _cut-off_," said Fergus. The Colonel said he believed that was true. And this was a good illustration of what one persevering and intelligent man can do in bringing in the larger life and nobler purpose of the Kingdom of Heaven. Such a man makes men cease from _labor_, which is always irksome, and _work_ with God. This is always ennobling. "I am ashamed to say that I do not know what a _cut-off_ is," said Alice, who, like Seth, had been trained to "confess ignorance." "I was going to say so," said John Rodman. "And I,--and I,--and I," said quite a little chorus. "We must make up a party, the first pleasant day, and go and see the stationary engine which pumps this water for us." So the Colonel met their confessions. "But does not all this indicate that we might spend a few days in looking up inventions?" "I think we ought to," said Hatty. "Certainly we ought, if the Vesuvius pays. Imagine me at Manchester. Imagine John Bright taking me through his own mill, and saying to me, 'This is the rover we like best, on the whole. Do you use this in America?' Imagine me forced to reply that I do not know a rover when I see one, and could not tell a 'slubber' from a 'picker.'" The others laughed, and confessed equal ignorance. "Only, John Bright has no mills in Manchester, Hatty." "Well, they are somewhere; and I must not eat the bread of the Vesuvius slubbers, and not know something of the way in which slubbers came to be." "Very well," said Uncle Fritz, as usual recalling the conversation to sanity. "Whom shall we read about first?" "Tubal Cain first," said Fergus. "He seems to have been the first of the crew." "It was not he who found out witty inventions," said Fanchon, in a mock _aside_. "I should begin with Archimedes," said Uncle Fritz. "Excellent!" said Fergus; "and then may we not burn up old Fogarty's barn with burning-glasses?" The children dislike Fogarty, and his barn is an eyesore to them. It stands just beyond the hedge of the Lady Oliver garden. "I thank Archimedes every time I take a warm bath. Did he not invent hot baths?" "What nonsense! He was killed by Caligula in one." "You shall not talk such stuff.--Uncle Fritz, what books shall I bring you?"